Was it Björk's I Miss You?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 12:11 AM on June 5, 2008

DVDs? Movies? The OP said that they're not big TV people.
I'm afraid if it's small country towns in central NSW, you should change "no guarantee of" to "guarantee of no" internet access outside internet cafes. That's been my experience anyway.
One of the best things my partner and I did on an overseas trip was to bring a5 notebooks and keep detailed diaries, which we'd do our best to fill in at the end of each day's sightseeing and compare them. Some... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 6:45 PM on June 4, 2008 marked best answer

Barry Adamson, your go-to man for low-down sleaze. (warning flash)
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 12:50 AM on June 4, 2008

http://www.westernunion.com/ offers precisely this service, though it'll depend on which country your friend is in, and what your definition is of "pay too much".
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 12:41 AM on June 4, 2008

Read.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 11:41 PM on June 2, 2008

The absurd is your friend, and your idea about dressing in a specific fashion is a good one. Great performers use costume very deliberately.
Would you go and see AC/DC unless there was a grown man in a schoolboys' uniform on stage? Would KISS fans be satisfied with a t-shirts and jeans show? Would you be able to recognise Bono from the back of the stadium if you couldn't see those stupid sunnies?
If Flava Flav can make a career out of wearing a clock... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 12:28 AM on June 2, 2008

Evidence against the proposition: rubbing hands together used to be a sign of deference up until the early twentieth century, especially as used by shopkeepers and waiters.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 11:12 PM on June 1, 2008

Yes, tellurian---I thought that's what you meant. FWIW I'd also understand hand-wringing as anticipation in the right context, such as at the dinner table.
Rubbing flat palms together: I read somewhere once about prisoners in a jail in a central African country (which one exactly escapes my memory) who, when dancing during exercise periods, used to rub their palms together as noisily as they could as a substitute for applause, which for some reason was forbidden.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 11:47 PM on June 1, 2008

The Devil's Advocates
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 10:46 PM on June 1, 2008

Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 6:11 PM on June 1, 2008

Any location can use a team called the Abstract Nouns. C'arn you nouns.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 3:46 PM on May 28, 2008

Not really beating any systems, but anyway:
When you go to vote in an Australian election, feel free to graffitti up your ballot. Art on ballot papers is not only perfectly legal, but appreciated by tired electorate commission staff and the exhausted volunteers from the Parties.
As long as you:
a) legibly and correctly number all the boxes in compulsory-preferential election (ie. Federal elections),
b) make some kind of clear legible preference in... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 12:15 AM on May 27, 2008

In Australia, it would be technically illegal but very hard to solve. Workers on enterprise bargaining agreements or awards could reasonably expect back-pay for unpaid overtime worked, but they'd likely have to negotiate for it. Workers on individual contracts could see a lawyer to have the terms of their contract enforced, which presumably would have overtime and penalty rates specified.
I am not your industrial lawyer, union delegate, organiser, industrial... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:14 PM on May 26, 2008

Lupe Fiasco does a good line in happy, progressive hip-hop, and he's got the best name I've heard for a long time.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 10:10 PM on May 22, 2008 marked best answer

As a Sydneysider, I've never heard of such a thing, and doubt it would take off it were launched. Though some of us are quite nice, Sydney has a deserved reputation in Australia as a socially insular, cliquey city in which it's difficult to make friends easily.
Seconding Meta.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:48 PM on May 22, 2008

Getting away from SF and fantasy, you can't go past the Forstye Saga, the novels, or the latest BBC adaptation.
Emile Zola's Rougon-Macquart novels are fantastic as well, and you can read them out of order.
Russian: War and Peace from the nineteenth century and Dr. Zhivago from the twentieth.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 7:21 PM on May 21, 2008

There's the Manifesto which describes the dictatorship of the proletariat preceding the attainment of Communism:
When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:49 PM on May 21, 2008

I suspect you might be better off looking through Lenin for theorisation about stages, in that case. Perhaps Ch5 of The State And Revolution is your answer.
I should add also that IANYD (I am not your dialectician).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:09 PM on May 21, 2008

Tortilla. Grab five or six fist-sized potatoes, five eggs and an onion. Chop the potatoes into irregular chunks and fry or bake them until they've just got a bit of a crisp skin. Take them out, put them hot into a big bowl with the onion (chopped finely) the eggs (beaten a little bit) and some salt and pepper, mix it around, then pour into a hot saucepan, turning it over to seal it nicely.
Eat it hot, or save it for later cold. Have a slice as a snack or a half as a meal. I like mine... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:55 PM on May 19, 2008

Last time I was bitten by a neighbourhood dog (imagine dawson's wound on my calf, through a perfectly good set of work pants) I went to see my GP, who told me that though rabies was a very unlikely prospect in Australia, I was overdue for a tetanus shot.
Soonertbone, I share your morbid apprehension about needles to the ludicrous point that I feel more repelled by any given scene in ER or Scrubs than, say, the opening battle in Saving Private Ryan. Let me reassure you that the... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:27 PM on May 18, 2008

It is not unreasonable or naïve to expect the people you care about to not behave like jerks to you.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 1:01 AM on May 16, 2008

Seconding email games if you're able to; this really helped me in a crappy clerical job I had once. One of the other workers I got on with and I brought in little magnetic portable chess sets, to keep in a side drawer, and over days we'd challenge each other, at the rate of one move every couple of hours. Now normally I don't like to play chess and I'm not very good at it, and the other bloke wasn't that flash either, but it was absolutely lifesaving for both of us to have something in the day... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 3:45 PM on May 15, 2008

Wikipedia on carburetion.
The throttle (accelerator) linkage does not directly control the flow of liquid fuel. Instead, it actuates carburetor mechanisms which meter the flow of air being pulled into the engine. The speed of this flow, and therefore its pressure, determines the amount of fuel drawn into the airstream.
Putting your foot on the accelerator restricts the flow of air into the engine, creating a faster flow over the needle, and a richer... [more]
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 8:45 PM on May 14, 2008

I take it back. TheNewWazoo is correct.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 8:53 PM on May 14, 2008

Facebook for workers, that's exactly what I'm after.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:47 PM on May 13, 2008

Thank you all for the very helpful responses. I knew you wouldn't let me down.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 3:52 PM on May 14, 2008

It's an anachronism rather than a caricature, so if it's a period novel, it might be appropriate.
My grandfather used to use it, but then he also used to say things like "you're a real white man" when someone was kind or generous, so there you go.
...and it's spelled "bonzer".
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 8:45 PM on May 13, 2008

For the fans of Ferris Beuller: "Le jeux sont faits, your ass is mine".
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:37 PM on May 12, 2008

</task>
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 11:30 PM on May 12, 2008

The unknown future rolls toward us. I face it for the first time with a sense of hope, because if a machine, a Terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 2:45 AM on May 13, 2008

Is this it?
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:58 PM on May 12, 2008 marked best answer

If you're putting it on the outside, you could use the blackout solution used by crooks and home-growers worldwide: aluminium foil.
(Of course if the cops see it they might think you're using the tower case as a mini-meth lab).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:46 PM on May 7, 2008

It's obvious that you do care very much about class, despite rejecting the crassly supremacist version of it. That's OK, we live in a class-ridden society and just wishing class away isn't going to make it disappear. If you want to get over the feeling that you are better than your friends, try working in a menial job in the hospitality sector for a while. It's a lot more difficult and stressful, and requires a lot more effort than you think.
Have a bit of respect.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:47 PM on May 6, 2008

A bit dated and a bit colonial, but John Le Carré's The Honourable Schoolboy is great fun for British Hong Kong. And spies.
The Year of Living Dangerously ditto for Cold War Jakarta.
If Sydney counts as South-East Asia (as Keating might have said) then Peter Corris's Cliff Hardy detective novels and short stories, for Sydney in the late seventies and early eighties.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 2:42 AM on May 5, 2008

Whackiness?
(PS. Are we talking all-nighters for business or pleasure? If the former, it sounds like yous are a lot more fun than mine).
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 10:27 PM on April 29, 2008

I've dissolved old gum with a bit of petrol on cotton wool. Advantage: effective. Disadvantage: smelly.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:22 PM on April 29, 2008

Conservatory!
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:10 PM on April 27, 2008 marked best answer

It'd be a good compliment only if someone asked if you had trouble understanding them, or was in some other way directly interested in what you thought about their English.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:06 PM on April 23, 2008

Everything that's said about wordpress is true. You can't go past it for ease of use.
I'll also point you towards gallery2, which does photographs far better than WP's integrated uploader, and which integrates into WP.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:40 PM on April 23, 2008

Great description of illiteracy.
If you get frantic calls after five minutes, you're being treated as if you have nothing better to do. If you're not hired exclusively as a helpdeskist, behave like it, and be like the IT folk at my work: helpful, but sardonic and slightly intimidating. You're a professional.
When you get a call you suspect is someone dumping their problem on to you, first get a cup of tea, eat a biscuit, *then* go and show them how to print to the network printer.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:04 PM on April 21, 2008

A pair of murderers in Shakespeare's Richard III who are sent to kill the Duke of Clarence work out how and why to do it.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 8:50 PM on April 20, 2008

Fiasco.

Yes?
Try the Australianism 'rooted' to describe clusterfucked situations or objects. It covers an almost infinite range of rootedness. Broken household appliance? It's rooted. That excel spreadsheet? Rooted. Public transport system in your major city? Rooted. War in Iraq? Rooted.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:07 PM on April 17, 2008

Gallery2 is lovely, and it integrates well into Wordpress and Drupal, if that's what floats your boat.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 4:39 PM on April 17, 2008 marked best answer

Fiasco's Red Risotto:
To your bog-standard risotto recipe (stock/rice/salt), add 1 chopped spanish onion fried in balsamic vinegar, a finely chopped stalk of celery, a red capsicum, 1-2 chopped tomatoes, fresh basil, chorizo and/or bacon, paprika, red wine, and chilli to taste.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 6:15 PM on April 15, 2008 marked best answer

Alternatively, find a more tactful/respectful way to describe the female characters in your production.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 10:51 PM on April 13, 2008

I've used Civic CRM (with Drupal 5) and I'll vouch for its awesomeness, if I understand your project right, it'll be perfect for some of the things you need. The vocabulary takes a bit of getting used to and the documentation is patchy in places, but if you plan the database right, it should do anything you could possibly want for collecting information on supporters.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:52 PM on April 13, 2008

Defcon might suit if you're into quirky strategy and hypnotic effect.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 11:17 PM on April 7, 2008

Asimov's The Last Question. Apparently it was his favourite.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 9:43 PM on March 30, 2008

Seconding Layer Cake, the book is even better. And if it's English you're after, you can't not see Get Carter. No, not the Stallone one.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 5:20 PM on March 25, 2008

Intelligence services are always on the lookout for IT-qualified foreign-lanugage speakers.
Might be a lot more on the 'interesting' side than the 'well-paid'.
posted to Ask Metafilter by Fiasco da Gama at 3:46 PM on March 25, 2008